“This is not a game you’ll like.”
Never has a trailer’s opening line been more honest since “E.T. for Atari” promised to be a video game. For those of us who ignored this warning (the same way we ignore the recommended daily alcohol intake), My Summer Car offers an unparalleled glimpse into rural Finnish life in the 1990s—a love letter to automotive masochism that makes Dark Souls look like a Teletubbies dating simulator.
I spent 40 hours building this car and all I got was this drinking problem and an inexplicable knowledge of Finnish automotive engineering. The game, much like my last relationship, begins with a bare garage, a pile of parts, and the kind of optimism usually reserved for people who think they can fix their anxiety by downloading one of those ghost scanning apps.
Mechanics of Madness
My Summer Car is what you’d get if IKEA collaborated with Satan to create a car-building simulator. Every bolt, gasket, and spark plug must be installed with the precision of a brain surgeon with OCD, except the patient is made of metal and you’re operating with the manual dexterity of someone who just high-fived a hornets’ nest. Adjusting the car’s timing is like trying to perform surgery while wearing oven mitts and receiving instructions from a particularly judgmental crow.
(Bolts undone, mind broken)
When your Franken-car finally roars to life—assuming you haven’t already developed a passionate relationship with Finnish beer—the satisfaction feels like finally getting your father to say “I’m proud of you” without immediately following it with “but…”
The Finnish Approach to Game Design
The game’s tutorial guidance is roughly equivalent to Finnish swimming lessons: throw you in the deep end and call it character building. This philosophical stance aligns perfectly with the Finnish concept of “sisu,” which I’ve now personally redefined as “stubborn determination in the face of abject misery,” or as I like to call it, “Tuesday.”
Like any good Finnish experience, the game combines profound isolation with the constant threat of death by misadventure. The survival mechanics force you to manage hunger, thirst, and bodily functions with all the dignity of a first-date bathroom emergency. I learned the hard way that the in-game toilet is not, in fact, “optional equipment.”
[Be all meta and actually read the caption – go for it…]
The Five Stages of Automotive Grief
Much like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous model of grief, My Summer Car players go through distinct psychological phases—except instead of reaching acceptance, you just develop new and interesting nervous tics:
- Denial: “This can’t be that hard. It’s just a car. I built a computer once!”
(Narrator: It was, in fact, that hard.)
- Anger: “WHO DESIGNED THIS TIMING BELT? SATAN’S ENGINEER COUSIN STEVE?”
(Fun fact: I spent three hours adjusting valve timing only to realize I’d been turning the wrench the wrong way the entire time—a moment that makes Sisyphus look like an optimist.)
- Bargaining: “Dear Finnish Car Gods, if you just let this engine start, I promise to never make jokes about Scandinavian furniture assembly again.”
(The Finnish Car Gods are deaf to our prayers, much like your neighbors when your engine sounds like a dying moose in a washing machine.)
- Depression: “I now understand why Finnish cinema is so melancholic. They were all probably trying to build cars.”
(This stage often coincides with an inexplicable craving for koskenkorva and a sudden appreciation for death metal.)
- Acceptance: Just kidding! There is no acceptance. There’s only the thousand-yard stare of someone who can now rebuild a carburetor in their sleep but still can’t maintain a healthy relationship.
The Absurd and the Authentic
The world itself feels like a time capsule of 1990 rural Finland, preserved with all its rough edges and occasional death threats from drunk neighbors. You’ll take on odd jobs that make your actual career choices seem almost reasonable: delivering firewood, pumping septic tanks, and other adventures in rural entrepreneurship that would make a LinkedIn motivational poster burst into tears.
Like the works of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki (but with more swearing and engine grease), the game presents a world where everything is simultaneously deeply meaningful and completely absurd. Each failed engine start becomes a metaphor for life’s futile struggles, each stripped bolt a reminder of our own stripped dignity.
Final Thoughts
My Summer Car is the gaming equivalent of that friend who says “it’s not that bad” right before showing you something that permanently alters your worldview. It’s not just a game—it’s a Finnish endurance test disguised as entertainment, a digital vision quest that leaves you questioning whether cars, computers, or happiness itself was a mistake.
For those brave souls considering this journey: May your coffee be strong, your anti-anxiety medication stronger, and your tolerance for Finnish automotive engineering strongest of all. Just remember, like the great Finnish rally driver Markku Alén once said before a particularly treacherous stage: “We die like men.” Though in My Summer Car, you’ll die more like a confused tourist who thought “optional” seat belts were actually optional.
As the Finnish proverb goes, “Kyllä se siitä, kunhan ensin hajoaa” (“It will be fine, but only after it first falls apart”)—words that have become less of a saying and more of a personal attack after my twentieth failed engine assembly.
[Review written by someone who now rates life experiences on a scale from “peaceful sauna session” to “trying to install My Summer Car’s timing belt while drunk neighbors offer unsolicited advice”]
My Summer Car
Summary
My Summer Car is the gaming equivalent of that friend who says “it’s not that bad” right before showing you something that permanently alters your worldview. It’s not just a game—it’s a Finnish endurance test disguised as entertainment, a digital vision quest that leaves you questioning whether cars, computers, or happiness itself was a mistake.
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